A number of years ago, Dutch Boyd started up an online poker site called PokerSpot. The site became popular very quickly, and was, according to Dutch himself, making a lot of money for him and his brother. Then, according to Dutch, the company ran into major problems with their payment processor, and were unable to pay out people who had requested cashouts. Some people were able to charge back their credit cards, but a lot of people lost their deposits on the site, as PokerSpot went under. Dutch tried to sell the assets of the company, but couldn't find a deal that he liked and the company ceased to exist.

Some people think that Dutch simply ran off with the money. That the entire site was an elaborate ruse to make off with a few hundred K of people's money. Some blame Dutch for not selling the assets when he had the chance, and paying back the depositors.

Personally, I tend to believe Dutch's side of the story. The site was starting to do reasonably well, and was raking in over 100k a month. A year of development had been put into the software. The site was throwing off a lot of profits to its co-founders. What would be the point in running off with customer deposits at this point?

This was about seven years ago.

Now to Justin "Zeejustin" Bonomo. As you know, Zeejustin and "JJProdigy" were both busted for multi-accounting. Zeejustin was found to be multi-accounting on Party Poker, and had his Party Poker and Pokerstars accounts closed and his funds confiscated. He had hundreds of thousands of dollars confiscated and his reputation was ruined within the poker community.

This was about a year and a half ago.

Both these young men made mistakes. And they both admitted that they made mistakes. Dutch has posted at length on his blog about how Pokerspot ruined him financially. Zeejustin also posted on his blog about how sorry he was, and how stupid he was to multi-account.

Should we forgive and move on?

If you ask me, I say, of course. The reasons?

1. They were both young (early 20's) when they made their mistakes.

2. Haven't we all made mistakes in our lives, especially when at a young age, that we were forgiven for?

3. Were they punished enough for their transgressions? In both cases I would say, yes.

Our society is all about second chances. Can we really ostracize Dutch Boyd and Justin "Zeejustin" Bonomo for the rest of their lives, for mistakes that they made at such a young age? Are people really this pissed off at them about what they did, or is there something else going on?

In our humble opinion, Dutch and Justin have both paid the price and both should be forgiven.